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Soutbcrn Writers. 

Biographical and Critical Studies. 

f rwfn IRusselL 

$e William /Ifealone ^asfeervilL 



SfSPJEMBBR, J©96\ 



Barbee & Smith, Agents, 

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Southern Writers Series. 



BY WILLIAM MALONE BASKERVILL. 



In a series of twelve papers the writer proposes 
to give a tolerably complete survey of that literary 
movement which, beginning about 1870, has spread 
over the entire South. There will be no attempt to 
place a final estimate upon this contribution, though 
some critical opinions will now and then be offered. 
The effort will be rather to present biographical 
data and literary appreciations — to stimulate the 
desire for a more intimate acquaintance with this 
literature which is so fresh, original, and racy of the 
soil. The series will appear as follows, beginning 
with July : 

Joel Chandler Harris. 

Maurice Thompson. 

Irwin Russell. 

Sidney Lanier. 

Mrs. Margaret J. Preston. 

George Washington Cable. 

Charles Egbert Craddock. 

Richard Malcolm Johnston. 

Thomas Nelson Page. 
No. 10. James I/fine Allen; 
No. 11. Misc Grace King. ,' ' '. , 
No. 12. Samuel Miatuin Feck. 

These writers may not unfairly be consider^ 
typical and representative of {ho! beat "ihaf «h£s \>een. 
produced in this new era* ' •;".•*•••••• "• .•" • . * 

• # « •*-•_••• • • *•* * * 

Southern Writers: Published Monthly. 
Subscription price, $1 a year. Single copies, 10 
cents, postage paid. 

Send orders for the whole series or for separate 
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Copyright, 1S96. 



^ Hrwin IRusselU 

|* 

$ A YOUNG Mary lander, a 
Yjg, AA stripling just from college, 
S<3 J[ j^ was dreaming dreams from 
which he was awakened by the guns 
of Sumter. One sleepless night in 
April, 1 86 1, he wrote the poem, 
" My Maryland," which may not in- 
aptly be called the first note of the 
new Southern literature — M new in 
strength, new in depth, new in the 
largest elements of beauty and 
truth." He that had ears to hear 
might have heard in the booming of 
those guns not only the signal for a 
gigantic contest, but also the proc- 
lamation of the passing away of the 
old order, and along with it the wax- 
flowery, amateurish, and sentimental 
race of Southern writers. 

But first should come the terrible 

experiences of a mighty conflict, in 

which the soul of the people was to 

be brought out through struggles, 

7 97 



Ifrwtn IRusselL 



passions, partings, heroism, love, 
death — all effective in the production 
of genuine feeling and the develop- 
ment of real character. While the 
battles were being fought in the 
homes of the Southerners, their 
poets sent forth, now a stirring, 
martial lyric, now a humorous song 
or poem recounting the trials and 
hardships of camp, hospital, and 
prison life, these becoming ever 
more and more intermingled with 
dirges — for Jackson, for Albert Sid- 
ney Johnston, for Stuart, for Ashby, 
and finally for the " Conquered Ban- 
ner." But in all of these there was 
no trace of artificiality, no sign of 
mawkish sentimentality. They were 
surcharged with deep, genuine, sin- 
cere feeling ; they were instinct with 
life. In this respect the war poetry 
laid the foundation for the new liter- 
ature. 

Accompanying the return to real- 
ity was a social earthquake which 
laid bare the rich literary deposits in 
98 



•ffrwin IRuzeell 



which the South abounded. As one 
of the best of the new school has 
said, "Never in the history of this 
country has there been a generation 
of writers who came into such an 
inheritance of material as has fallen 
to these younger writers of the 
South." Under the new order 
Southern life and manners were for 
the first time open to a full and free 
report and criticism. 

It is noticeable that in the racy, 
humorous writings of Longstreet, 
Thompson, Meek, and others — 
sketches which contained the ele- 
ments of real life — the negro is con- 
spicuous for his absence. At that 
time there was enough and to spare 
written about him by way of defense, 
vindication, or apology, but to use 
him as art material seemed to be far 
from the thoughts of Southern writ- 
ers. The only notable book in which 
negro character was made use of 
chanced to be a phenomenal success ; 
but as it was written on the principle 
99 



ILotC. 



f twin IRusseli, 



of antagonism, and as it really served 
as the signal for the deadly struggle 
which followed, it was altogether 
natural that Southern writers would 
not imitate this example. After the 
war, however, the one subject which 
hitherto could have been treated with 
least freedom became the most pro- 
lific theme of the new writers. Con- 
sciously or unconsciously, they one 
and all, with one noteworthy excep- 
tion, adopted a method diametrically 
opposed to that of the author of 
" Uncle Tom's Cabin." They were 
either those whose lives had been 
purified in the fires of adversity and 
defeat, or buoyant, ardent young 
souls "with the freshness of early 
dew upon their wings." 

This literature of the new South 
had for its cardinal principles good 
will and sympathy. Its aims were 
to cement bonds of good fellowship 
between the sections, to depict the 
negro according to his real character, 
and to exhibit to the world the true 
100 



ffrwtn IRuaeclU 



relations which existed between mas- 
ter and slave. 

Irwin Russell was among the first, 
if not the very first, of Southern 
writers to appreciate the literary 
possibilities of the negro character 
and of the unique relations existing 
between the two races before the 
war, and was among the first to de- 
velop them, says Joel Chandler Har- 
ris. This skillful delineator of 
unique and peculiar character was 
naturally drawn to the sensitive, er- 
ratic, but exquisitely attuned young 
poet, and he contributed the " Intro- 
duction " when his slender remnant 
was published in 1888 by the Cen- 
t u r y Company under the title : 
u Poems by Irwin Russell." The 
whole story is told in a few simple 
words by Mr. Harris, in which he 
says of Russell: "He possessed in 
a remarkable degree what has been 
described as the poetical tempera- 
ment, and though he was little more 
than twenty-six years old at the 
101 



frwtn 1Ru66elU 



time of his death, his sufferings and 
his sorrows made his life a long one. 
He had at his command everything 
that affection could suggest ; he had 
loyal friends wherever he went ; but 
in spite of all this, the waywardness 
of genius led continually in the di- 
rection of suffering and sorrow. In 
the rush and hurly-burly of the 
practical, everyday world he found 
himself helpless ; and so, after a 
brief struggle, he died." 

It is surprising how few in the 
South know anything of this young 
poet except his name, and many 
have never heard that. Only one 
sketch of him has found its way into* 
the literary journals, and that is a very 
interesting and valuable paper in the 
Critic^ written by Charles C. Mar- 
ble, who seems to have had a close 
personal acquaintance with the " un- 
happy boy." Another paper of still 
more vividly personal interest was 
written by Catherine Cole and pub- 
lished in the New Orleans Times* 
102 



•ffrwin TCusselL 



Democrat. But for much of the 
personal matter the writer is indebt- 
ed to the young poet's mother, who, 
though an invalid, is still living. 

In Irwin Russell's veins mingled 
the blood of Virginia and of New 
England. His paternal great-grand- 
father was a soldier of the Revolu- 
tion, and hailed from the Old Do- 
minion. His grandfather was born 
and reared in this state, but after 
reaching manhood he went thence 
to Ohio, where he settled and mar- 
ried a woman of fine intellect, a na- 
tive of the Isle of Wight, Miss 
Mary McNab. One of their sons is 
still living, Mr. Addison P. Russell, 
who was formerly Secretary of 
State in Ohio, but is better known 
now as the author of several books : 
"Library Notes," "A Club of One," 
and "In a Club Corner." Irwin's 
father, Dr. William McNab Russell, 
grew up in Ohio, studied medicine, 
and was married to a young lady, a 
native of New York, but of New 
103 



ITtwfn IRusselL 



England ancestry. The newly mar- 
ried pair then sought a home in 
Mississippi, settling at Port Gibson, 
where the young doctor engaged in 
the practice of medicine, becoming 
in a short time very successful. 
Here it was, June 3, 1853 — the 
year in which the author of "Marse 
Chan" first saw the light in Vir- 
ginia^ — that Irwin Russell was born. 
Almost immediately, at three months 
of age, he was subjected to an attack 
of yellow fever, which terrible 
scourge was then raging as an epi- 
demic. That same year the family 
and home were transferred to St. 
Louis, Mo., where they remained 
until the breaking out of the Civil 
War. Then Dr. Russell took his 
family back to Port Gibson to cast 
in his lot with the Confederacy ; f or^ 
like almost every Northerner that 
had made his home in the South, he 
was an ardent sympathizer with this 
section. 

While at St. Louis Irwin was 
104 



•ffrwln IRuesell. 



placed in school, for he was a re- 
markably precocious boy, having 
learned to read well at four years of 
age. He was a diligent little stu- 
dent, and so general was his infor- 
mation that his young friends used 
to call him the " walking cyclopedia." 
Again, after the war, he was sent 
back to this city to be placed in the 
St. Louis University, which was 
under the charge of the Jesuit fa- 
thers, and from which he was grad- 
uated in 1869 with high credit. At 
college he kept up his studious hab- 
its and gave evidence of real ability, 
his talents being more particularly 
shown in the line of higher mathe- 
matics. Mr. Marble writes : " I re- 
member hearing him talk brilliant- 
ly of the science of navigation, of 
which, theoretically, he was master. 
He had discovered a method of ex- 
actly ascertaining the latitude from 
observations of the sun's altitude 
and deviation from the meridian ; 
and when it was favorably reported 
7* 105 



Iftwin IRusaelL 



upon by certain scientific persons he 
immediately applied to the captain o f 
a ship for the privilege of making a 
voyage with him, that he might test 
and increase his knowledge of navi- 
gation." 

After graduation he returned to 
Mississippi, read law, and by a spe- 
cial act of the Legislature he was 
admitted to the bar at the age of 
nineteen. He practiced for awhile, 
and became specially proficient in 
conveyancing, which is said to re- 
quire very exact technical knowl- 
edge. But one of his peculiar tastes 
and disposition could hardly be ex- 
pected to confine himself to the 
daily routine and drudgery of a law 
office. He was inclined to diver- 
sions ; one, for example, was the 
printer's trade, which he learned so 
thoroughly as to become a dainty 
compositor, and in time he grew to 
be critically fond of old prints and 
black-letter volumes — a real con- 
noisseur, recognizing at a glance 
106 



f twin *Ku0sell. 



the various types used in book- 
making. He delighted to pick up 
odd volumes of the old dramatists, 
and took special pride in possessing 
one of the oldest copies of Wycher- 
ly in existence. He was also given 
to roving ; and, like Robert Louis 
Stevenson, he might have been 
known and pointed out for the pat- 
tern of an idler. Once, when under 
the spell which Captain Marry att 
not infrequently has thrown over a 
romantic and impulsive youth, he 
left home, Mr. Marble tells us, 
much to the discomfort of his par- 
ents, and lived in a sailors' boarding 
house in New Orleans. While 
there he habitually dressed as a 
sailor, and one day he applied for 
a position to a captain about to sail 
to the Mediterranean. "Abandon- 
ing for the time being," continues 
Mr. Marble, " his spectacles (which, 
as he had when he was only two 
years old lost the sight of one eye 
by the stab of a penknife which 
107 



ffrwin IRusselL 



he unfortunately found lying open, 
and was nearsighted in the other,. 
was a serious matter), he rowed 
out alongside the ship and with 
the greatest difficulty got on board. 
He was examined, of course, mi- 
nutely and critically by the first 
mate, and told to come the next 
day. But he saw the probability of 
long and hard service, and aban- 
doned the notion of thus seeing life, 
even if he could have succeeded in 
concealing his blindness till the 
ship sailed. But the sea never 
ceased to have " a perpetual fascina- 
tion for him." 

Fields for observation and for the 
study of character were thus of- 
fered to his inner eye, however 
much the outer ones were shut in 
by blindness and nearsightedness. 
The grotesque appealed to him 
strongly, and as he had acquired fa- 
cility in drawing, he made numer- 
ous and fantastic sketches on scraps 
of paper, old envelopes, or whatever 
108 



Urwfn IRusselL 



was at hand, as material for future 
use. His skill in caricature remind- 
ed his friends not a little of Thack- 
eray. Love of nature was in him a 
passion ; and a splendid sunset, a 
gorgeous Southern forest, or other 
natural scenes, he keenly enjoyed 
and beautifully described. Mr. Mar- 
ble says : " He saw every bird, took 
note of every strange conformation 
of nature, was familiar with the 
names of trees and plants, had an 
eye for prospects, an ear for sound, 
an exquisite sensitiveness for na- 
ture's perfume, and a rollicking en- 
joyment of the country." He was 
also very fond of music, played the 
piano well, and was an expert on 
the banjo. His talents were versa- 
tile, and in him was found the ex- 
quisite delicacy of organism so fre- 
quently seen in modern poets, which 
vibrated to every appeal. He was 
sensitive alike to internal and exter- 
nal impressions, changes of weather 
or temperature, grotesque or humor- 
109 



Ifrwin IRuseelL 



ous characters, different manners 
and tongues, and particularly re- 
sponsive to the influences of the 
great masters of fiction and poetry. 

At some time or other Irwin 
Russell must have had a rarely 
sympathetic companion or guide in 
literary study. Was it one of the 
Jesuit fathers, or his own father, 
" who was idolized by the son ? " 
We know not. But his extreme 
nicety in the use of language, his 
quick and retentive ear for dialect, 
his ability to imitate almost perfect- 
ly the poets, and his deep reading 
in literature for one of his age were 
all remarkable and gave evidence of 
careful training and study. He was 
another example of that rare union 
of bright mind with frail body 
through which the keenest appre- 
ciation and the most exquisite sen- 
sibility are developed. 

At times, too, he was capable of 
painstaking application and ardent 
devotion to study. He made a 
110 



Krwin IRusselL 



close study of Chaucer and " Per- 
cy's Reliques," and the old Eng- 
lish dramatists were his constant 
companions, the sources of never- 
failing enjoyment. He caught the 
tones of Herrick or Thackeray's 
ballads with equal ease ; greatly 
admired Byron, and was powerfully 
influenced by Shelley. In his cor- 
respondence there was here an echo 
of Carlyle, there of Thackeray or 
some other master. Though his 
reading was confined mainly to 
English literature, he knew Mo- 
liere's dramas, even wishing to 
translate « Tartufe " and " Le Mis- 
anthrope," and took the keenest de- 
light in Rabelais, whose wit, sar- 
casm, and satiric exaggeration he 
longed to apply to the follies and 
deformities of more modern life. 
" The margins of his copy of this 
author," says a friend, "and many 
interleaved pages were filled with 
notes and comments ; and William 
Dove himself, >j^hom Sou they de- 
111 



Iftwfn IRusselL 



scribes as a 4 practical Pantagruelist,' 
was not more influenced by his 
pages. He literally, as he some- 
where says, had the best parts of 
Rabelais by heart." 

But his chief favorite was Burns, 
whose influences are everywhere 
visible. " Christmas Night in the 
Quarters " reminds us strongly now 
of the "Jolly Beggars," now of 
u Tarn O'Shanter." His imitation 
of Burns's " Epistles " is so perfect 
that we could easily believe that the 
Scottish bard wrote the following 
stanzas : 

The warld, they say, is gettin' auld ; 
Yet in her bosom, Fve been tauld, 
A burning youthfu' heart's installed — 

I dinna ken — 
But sure her face seems freezin' cauld 

To some puir men. 

In summer, though the sun may shine, 
Aye still the winter's cauld is mine — 
But what o' that? The manly pine 

Endures the storm! 
Ae spark o' Poesy divine 

Will keep me warm. 
112 



ITrwfn IRueselL 



In almost boyish abandon he 
says : " Burns is my idol. He 
seems to me the greatest man that 
ever God created, beside whom all 
other poets are utterly insignificant. 
In fact, my feelings in this regard 
are precisely equivalent to those of 
the old Scotchman mentioned in 4 Li- 
brary Notes,' who was consoled in 
the hour of death by the thought 
that he should see Burns." 

For the writing of negro dialect 
and the delineation of negro charac- 
ter Irwin Russell had the gift of 
genius and all the advantages of 
opportunity. As he himself said : 
14 1 have lived long among the 
negroes (as also long enough away 
from them to appreciate their pecul- 
iarities) ; understand their charac- 
ter, disposition, language, customs, 
and habits ; have studied them, and 
have them continually before me." 
But with him dialect was a second 
consideration. He used it as 
Shakespeare did in " King Lear," 
7** 113 



Iftwin IRusselL 



as Fielding did in "Joseph An- 
drews," as Scott, Thackeray, 
George Eliot, and all the great 
masters have used it — as the only 
natural medium for the presenta- 
tion of certain kinds of character. 
In another garb they would be mas- 
querading. As the author of " Un- 
cle Remus " has aptly said, " The 
dialect is not always the best — it is 
often carelessly written — but the 
negro is there, the old-fashioned, 
unadulterated negro, who is still 
dear to the Southern heart. There 
is no straining after effect — indeed, 
the poems produce their result by 
indirection ; but I do not know 
where could be found to-day a hap- 
pier or a more perfect representa- 
tion of negro character." 

Not the least important of the 
shaping influences which contrib- 
uted to this result is sympathetically 
suggested by " One Mourner," in 
"Befo' de War," " Whar's sorry 
Marse Irwin's dead:" 
114 



flrwin IRusselU 



He couldn , 'a' talked so nachal 
'Bout niggers in sorrow and joy, 

Widdouten he had a black mammy 
To sing to him 'long ez a boy. , 

But his chief title to our consider- 
ation is originality. As Mr. Page 
has said, " He laid bare a lead in 
which others have since discovered 
further treasures." Like many 
another original discovery, this was 
made in a very simple, natural way. 
To a friend who asked him how he 
came to write in negro dialect, he 
answered : " It was almost an in- 
spiration. I did not reduce the tri- 
fle to writing until some time after- 
wards, and then, from want of 
recollection, in a much condensed 
and emasculated form. You know 
that I am something of a banjoist. 
Well, one evening I was sitting in 
our back yard in old Mississippi, 
4 twanging ' on the banjo, when I 
heard the missis — our colored do- 
mestic, an old darky of the Aunt 
Dinah pattern — singing one of the 
115 



Iftwfn IRuaseiL 



outlandish camp meeting hymns of 
which the race is so fond. She was 
an extremely 'ligious character and, 
although seized with the impulse to 
do so, I hesitated to take up the 
tune and finish it. I did so, how- 
ever, and in the dialect that I have 
adopted, and which I then thought, 
and still think, is in strict conformity 
to their use of it, I proceeded, as 
one inspired, to compose verse after 
verse of the most absurd, extrava- 
gant, and, to her, irreverent rhyme 
ever before invented, all the while 
accompanying it on the banjo, and 
imitating the fashion of the planta- 
tion negro. The old missis was so 
exasperated and indignant that she 
predicted all sorts of dire calamities. 
Meantime my enjoyment of it was 
prodigious. I was then about six- 
teen, and as I had soon after a like 
inclination to versify, was myself 
pleased with the performance, and 
it was accepted by the publisher, I 
have continued to work the vein in- 
116 



flrwin IRuesell, 



definitely. There is much in it, 
such as it is." 

Russell's appreciation of the dar- 
ky was wonderful. The negro's 
humor and his wisdom were a con- 
stant marvel to him. What would 
strike an ordinary observer as mere- 
ly ludicrous glistened by the reflect- 
ed light of his mind like a proverb. 
The darky's insight into human na- 
ture and circumstances he believed 
to be more than instinct : such in- 
fallible results could only come from 
deduction. When asked whether 
there was any real poetry in the ne- 
gro character, he replied : " Many 
think the vein a limited one, but I 
tell you that it is inexhaustible. 
The Southern negro has only just 
so much civilization as his contact 
with the white man has given him, 
He has only been indirectly influ- 
enced by the discoveries of science, 
the inventions of human ingenuity, 
and the general progress of mankind. 
Without education or social inter- 
117 



Ifrwin IRussell. 



course with intelligent and cultivated 
people, his thought has necessarily 
been original. . • . He has not 
been controlled in his convictions by 
historic precedent, and yet he has 
often manifested a foresight and 
wisdom in practical matters worthy 
of the higher races. You may call 
it instinct, imitation, what you will ; 
it has, nevertheless, a foundation. I 
am a Democrat, was a Rebel, but I 
have long felt that the negro, even 
in his submission and servitude, was 
conscious of a higher nature, and 
must some day assert it. 
I have felt that the soul could not be 
bound, and must find a way for it- 
self to freedom. The negro race, 
too, in spite of oppression, has re- 
tained qualities found in few others 
under like circumstances. Grati- 
tude it has always been distin- 
guished for ; hospitality and help- 
fulness are its natural creed ; brutal- 
ity, considering the prodigious depth 
of its degradation, is unusual. It 
118 



tfrwin IRussell. 



does not lack courage, industry, 
self-denial, or virtue. ... So 
the negro has done an immense 
amount of quiet thinking ; and 
with only such forms of expres- 
sion as his circumstances furnished 
him he indulges in paradox, hyper- 
bole, aphorism, sententious compar- 
ison. He treasures his traditions ; 
he is enthusiastic, patient, long-suf- 
fering, religious, reverent. Is there 
not poetry in the character ? " 

The " Poems " contain for the 
most part a picture of the negro 
himself. But only once is he in a 
reminiscential vein, when we catch 
a glimpse of the old-time prosper- 
ous planter, " Mahsr John," who 
" shorely wuz the greates' man de 
country ebber growed : " 

I only has to shet my eyes, an' den it 

seems to me 
I sees him right afore me now, jes like 

he use' to be, 
A settin* on de gal'ry, lookin* awful big 

an* wise, 

119 



•ffrwfn IRussell* 



Wid little niggers fannin' him to keep 

away de flies. 
He alluz wore de berry bes' ob planter's 

linen suits, 
An 7 kep' a nigger busy jes a blackin' ob 

his boots, 
De buckles on his galluses wuz made ob 

solid goP, 
An di'mons! dey was in his shut as thick 

as it would hol\ 

There is a slight touch of pathos in 

He had to pay his debts, an' so his Ian' is 

mos'ly gone, 
An' I declar' I's sorry fur my pore oV 

Mahsr John, 

but it does not prevent him from 
hiding " rocks " in the bale of cotton 
which, in another poem, he endeav- 
ors to sell to " Mahsr Johnny." 

In general the poems rather give 
true presentments of the negro's 
queer superstitions and still queerer 
ignorances ; his fondness for a story, 
especially an animal tale or a ghost 
story ; his habit of talking to him- 
self or the animal that he is plowing 
or driving; his gift in prayer and 
120 



•fftwin IRussell. 



shrewd preachments; his love of 
music, especially on the fiddle and 
the banjo, and the happy abandon- 
ment of his revels ; his irresponsible 
life, his slippery shifts, his injured 
innocence when discovered — over all 
of which are thrown the mantle of 
charity and the mellowing rays of 
humor and wisdom. Occasionally 
we chance upon a dainty bit of po- 
etry, as in the verse : 

An' folks don't 'spise de vi'let flower be- 
kase it ain't de rose. 

But of tener it is practical, homespun 
w T it, in which " Christmas Night in 
the Quarters," the best delineation 
of some phases of negro life yet 
written, specially abounds. Now it 
is old Jim talking to a slow ox : 

Mus' be you think Ps dead, 

An' dis de huss you's draggin'; 

You's mos' too lazy to draw yo' bref, 
Let 'lone drawin' de waggin. 

Then Brudder Brown, with na- 
tive simplicity, proceeds "to beg a 
blessin' on dis dance : " 
121 



Htwin IRusselL 



Oh Mahsr! let dis gath , rin , fin' a blessin* 

in jo' sight! 
Don't jedge us hard fur what we does — 

you know it's Christmus night. 

You bless us 7 please, Sah, eben ef we's 

doin' wrong to-night ; 
'Kase den we'll need de blessin' more'n 

ef we's doin' right. 

The dance begins — and a more nat- 
ural scene than the fiddler " callin' 
de figgers " was never penned — in 
which " Georgy Sam " carries off 
the palm. 

De nigger mus' be, fur a fac', 
Own cousin to a jumpin' jack! 

"An tell you what, de supper wuz 
a 'tic'lar sarcumstance," the poet him- 
self not even attempting to describe 
this scene. But the fun reaches it& 
height when the banjo is called f or, 9 
and the story of its origin is told : 
how Ham invented it u fur to amuse 
hese'f " in the ark. Did Burns ever 
sing a more rollicking strain than 
this? 

122 



flrwin IRuesell. 



He strung her, tuned her, struck a jig — 
'twas " Nebber Min' de Wedder "— 

She soun' like forty-lebben bands a play- 
in* all togedder; 

Some went to pattin', some to dancin'; 
Noah called de figgers, 

An' Ham he sot an' knocked de tune, de 
happiest ob niggers ! 

So wears the night, and wears so fast, 
All wonder when they find it past, 
And hear the signal sound to go 
From what few cocks are left to crow. 

The picture of the freedman is 
strikingly characteristic and true to 
life. The false sample of cotton 
and the hidden stones in the bale 
being detected, he is, as usual, ready 
enough with an excuse : 

Mahsr Johnny, dis is fine. 
Fs gone and hauled my brudder's cotton 
in, instead ob mine. 

He is a great flatterer and has a 
" slick tongue," either in begging a 
piece of tobacco or in wheedling 
" young marster " out of a dollar 
for a pup not " wuf de powder it'd 
123 



•ffrwin IRusselL 



take to blow him up." His pro- 
pensity for chickens is notorious ; 

An' ef a man cain't borry what's layin' 

out ob nights, 
I'd like you fur to tell me what's de good 

of swivel rights f 

He thinks you " turn State's eb- 

bvdence" with a crank, and "dem 

folks in de Norf is de beatin'est lot ! " 

In spite of their blue coats and brass 

buttons — 

I seed 'em de time 'at Grant's army come 
froo — 

liis opinion is : 

Dey's ign'ant as ign'ant kin be. 
Dey wudn't know gumbo, ef put in dey 

mouf — 
Why don't dey all sell out an' come to 

de Souf ? 

The negro's insight, observation, 
and sententiousness are revealed 
through many homely but inimita- 
ble aphorisms : 
3ut ef you quits a workin' ebbery time 

de sun is hot, 
De sheriff's goin' to lebby upon ebbery- 

t'ing you's got. 

124 



Irwin KueselL 



I nebber breaks a colt afore he's old 

enough to trabbel ; 
I nebber digs my taters tell dey's plenty 

big to grabble. 
I don't keer how my apple looks, but 

on'y how it tas'es. 
De man what keeps pullin' de grapevine 

shakes down a few bunches at leas'. 
A violeen is like an 'ooman, mighty hard 

to guide. 

Dere's alluz somefin' 'bout it out ob kel- 

ter, more or less, 
An' tain't de fancies'-lookin' ones dat 

alluz does de best. 
You nebber heerd a braggin' fiddler 

play a decent jig. 

There is a touch of sentiment in 
the father's parting precepts to his 
son, about to seek his fortune as_ 
waiter upon the " Robbut E. Lee : " 

It's hard on your mudder, your leabin'- — I 
don' know whatebber she'll do; 

An' shorely your fader'll miss you — I'll 
alluz be thinkin* ob you. 

But he quickly veils it under true 
humor and homely wisdom : 
Don't you nebber come back, sah, widout 
you has money an' clo'es, 
125 



Iftwin IRussell* 



I's kep* you as long as Fs gwine to, an* 

now you an' me we is done, 
An' calves is too skace in dis country 

to kill for a prodigal son. 

All these pictures are perfectly 
truthful, but as the lawyers say, 
they are not the whole truth. Per- 
haps Russell died too young to 
sound the depths of the negro's 
emotional nature. He caught no 
tones like those echoing in Harris's 
" Bless God, he died free ! " or James 
Whitcomb Riley's wail of the old 
mother over her dead " Gladness," 
her only freeborn child. 

The last two years of Russell's 
life present the strange contrasts so 
often met with in poetical temper- 
aments when the earthborn and the 
celestial have not been brought into 
perfect harmony. Acts of nobility 
and self-sacrifice were quickly fol- 
lowed by thoughtless follies which 
laid him low. During the whole of 
the yellow fever epidemic in 1878 he 
remained in Port Gibson and served 
126 



ITrwtn IRueselL 



as a devoted nurse, though he never 
escaped from the scenes through 
which he passed. The ghastly 
picture haunted his imagination. 
Two letters written to a friend at 
the time lift the curtain upon this 
terrible tragedy of human suffering 
and helplessness to which he was so 
nobly ministering. 

September i, 1878, he writes: 
"All of us are well worn out, nurs- 
ing; yet we cannot nurse the sick 
properly, there are so many of 
them, and many die for want of at- 
tention. It is horrible here, you 
cannot conceive how horrible. Of 
all who have died here, not one has 
had any sort of funeral. Rich or 
poor, there is no difference. As soon 
as the breath leaves them they are 
boxed up in pine coffins and buried 
without the least ceremony of any 
kind, and nobody to follow them to 
the grave." 

And again on the 30th : " I am 
worn out from nursing night and 
127 



flvwin IRmeelL 



day, and performing such other duties 
as were mine as a * Howard,' and 
simply as a man. Four days ago I, 
for the first time in a month, sat 
down to a regularly cooked and 
served meal. I have been living, 
like Dr. Wango Tango of nursery 
fame, c on a biscuit a day,' when I 
could get it. Happily the epidemic 
is nearly over in town for want of 
material. Between six hundred and 
seven hundred people (out of six- 
teen hundred) remained in town to 
face the fever. Out of these there 
have been about five hundred and 
seventy cases and one hundred and 
eighteen deaths up to this date. 
I will not attempt to give you an 
idea of the awful horrors I have 
seen, among which I have lived for 
the past five or six weeks, besides 
which I have seen or heard noth- 
ing whatever. Hendrik Conscience, 
Boccaccio, and DeFoe tried to de- 
scribe similar scenes, and I now re- 
alize how utterly they failed. No* 
128 



flrwfn IRussell. 



description can convey a tithe of the 
reality." 

To crown Irwin's misfortunes, his 
father, whom he idolized and " who 
had exhausted himself in philan- 
thropic efforts to arrest the scourge," 
suddenly died. Finely endowed as 
he was, and developing in very early 
life a taste for nothing so much as 
literature, he resisted the efforts of 
his family to find for him a place in 
a commercial or monotonous, com- 
monplace calling. Now thrown en- 
tirely upon himself, he endeavored 
to take up life in a manly, coura- 
geous way, and set out with many 
valuable pieces in his literary knap* 
sack for New York City, with the 
purpose of devoting himself to let- 
ters. Here, as everywhere, he found 
good friends and true, especially Mr. 
H. C. Bunner, Mr. R.W. Gilder, and 
Mr. R. U. Johnson, of Scribner's 
Monthly, and others ; and the love, 
tenderness, and comprehending sym- 
pathy with which these men gath- 
9 129 



ffrwin IRusselL 



ered about the boy, trying to shield 
him from his own weakness, must 
have been inexpressibly sweet to 
him, as it is gratefully treasured by 
his mother to this day, " although I 
knew," as he said to a friend with 
boyish sob, " that I would win, not 
they." He had exhausted all hia 
funds, but shrank from the thought 
of again calling upon those who had 
so often befriended him, when he 
was taken ill of a fever. Mr. Bun- 
ner and Mr. Johnson cared for and 
nursed him, and during the slow 
days of his convalescence, his head 
still seriously affected, he could re- 
member nothing of the time but 
" the mad wish to run away " — from 
himself, which he had before at- 
tempted. So, dazed in mind, he 
wandered down to the docks and 
upon the decks of the " Knicker- 
bocker," where he begged to be al- 
lowed to work his way to New Or- 
leans. " Gaunt and weak and wretch- 
ed as I was, they took me," said he % 
130 



flrwfn IRueaell. 



telling his sad story to " Catherine 
Cole," " and I did a coal heaver and 
fireman's duty almost all the way 
down. Landed here, I had no mon- 
ey, no friends, no clothes. I was 
as black as an imp of Satan, and had 
a very devil of despair in my heart. 
I wrote out some stuff — an account 
of the trip, I believe — and signing 
my own name to it, took it to the 
office of the New Orleans Times. 
The city editor, Maj. Robinson, 
took my copy, looked me over as if 
he wondered how such a dirty 
wretch ever got hold of it, and 
asked me how I came by it. I told 
him that I had traveled south on the 
ship with Mr. Russell, and that he 
had sent me. i Go back and tell Mr. 
Russell that I would be pleased to 
see him,' said the Major, and I did 
so. I could not present myself 
again at the Times office, so I left a 
letter there, telling the whole truth, 
and winding up thus : c What a time 
I had in that den of a fireman's f ore- 
131 



Hiwin IRusselL 



castle, living on tainted meat and 
genuine Mark Twain " slum-gul- 
lion," I won't try to tell you. I 
only tell you all this to make you 
understand why I did not let you 
know I was my own messenger last 
night. I never was in such a state 
before in all my lif e,and was ashamed 
to make myself known. However, 
needs must when the devil drives. 
I suppose I am not the only sufferer 
from Panurge's disease, lack o' 
money, but it is hard to smoke the 
pipe of contentment when you can't 
get tobacco.'" 

From this time till he died Irwin 
Russell was a semi-attache of the 
Times staff, and Mrs. Fields ("Cath- 
erine Cole"), who was in charge of 
the "All Sorts" column, tells how he 
came daily into her den to scratch 
off a rhyme or two in inimitable 
style, adding : " He was gentle and 
genial, a fellow of infinite jest, and 
it was no wonder he made loyal 
friends wherever he went." But he 
132 



flrwin IRuasell. 



was now absolutely without hope. 
" I have always known it," he would 
say to her, "with a sort of second 
sight and a premonition of these 
days, for I believe these are my 
last days. I feel now, so old am I, 
as if I could not remember the age 
when occasionally the desire for 
some unnatural stimulant did not 
possess me with a fury of desire. 
This has been stronger than ambi- 
tion, stronger than love. I have 
stretched my moral nature like a 
boy playing with a piece of elastic, 
knowing I should snap it presently. 
• . . It has been the romance of 
a weak young man threaded in 
with the pure love of a mother, a 
beautiful girl who hoped to be my 
wife, and friends who believed in 
my future. I have watched them 
lose heart, lose faith, and again and 
again I have been so stung and 
startled that I resolved to save my- 
self in spite of myself. ... I 
never shall." 

133 



ITrwin IRusselU 



Only a few days after one of 
these conversations this same friend 
and others went with their little 
wreaths of Christmas flowers down 
into the heart of Franklin Street, a 
wretched, noisy, dirty neighbor- 
hood, and into a forlorn little house, 
set right upon the street, on whose 
small wooden shutters hung a bow 
with floating ends of white tarlatan 
pinched out rudely at the edges. 
Children, barefooted and ragged, 
played in the dusty street ; curious, 
careless passers-by, to whom the 
youth was all unknown, stopped at 
the sign of the white bow, and en- 
tered in to gaze with ghoulish cu- 
riosity upon the stilled form. A 
policeman stood at the head of the 
casket, and near by was a faded, 
sad-eyed little woman, who held out 
a bundle of letters, the last he had 
received from his mother and sweet- 
heart. This poor Irish woman liv- 
ing here with her three children 
rented him a room and cooked his 
134 



•ffrwtn IRuesell. 



simple meals. He was a veritable 
stranger to her. His only claim on 
her was the pittance he paid for 
food and lodging. But for divine 
charity's sake she had watched 
him through the last hours of his 
sad life. Hers were the steady 
arms that held him when delirium 
seized him; hers were the hands 
that administered medicine and food ; 
her time and her sympathy were 
freely given ; and when at midnight 
he died, on a poor cot, in a poor 
room up under the roof, her prayers 
were the white wings of the guard- 
ian angel that accompanied the de- 
parting soul through the valley of 
the shadow of death. 

"Ah! if we pity the good and 
weak man who suffers undeserved- 
ly, let us deal very gently with him 
from whom misery extorts not only 
tears, but shame ; let us think hum- 
bly and charitably of the human na- 
ture that suffers so sadly and falls 
so low. Whose turn may it be to- 
135 



IFtwin IRusselL 



morrow? What weak heart, con- 
fident before trial, may not succumb 
under temptation invincible ? Cover 
the good man who has been van- 
quished ; cover his face and pass on." 
His remains were first laid away in 
New Orleans, but subsequently re- 
moved to St. Louis, to be placed by 
the side of his father's, so that even 
the pious wish of "One Mourner" 
was denied him. 

An' I hopes dey lay him to sleep, seh, 
Somewhar' whar* de birds will sing 

About him de livelong day, seh, 

An' de flowers will bloom in spring. 

But he still lives as the " South- 
ern humorist," his pitiful story sof- 
tens our hearts and his blithe spirit 
sweetens and refreshes our lives. 
136 



jindreas: 



*ESgl» 



jf jCegend of St jfndrow. 



(Uol. UK of Use Cibrary oT 
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